


Montana Moon

by Pfain Ryder (Cat_Moon)



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Pfain%20Ryder
Summary: A leap, a diner, a mountain... can Sam find some peace even while saving yet another life that's not his?





	Montana Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 1992 on a Greyhound bus travelling through Montana. A version of this story was published in the fanzine, PLAY IT AGAIN SAM #3. This one is quite different at the ending.

_"Summer nights, falling around my shoulder_

_Desert wind, blowing across my mind_

_Hunger time out on the borderline_

_It's a long way back, down a one-way track_

_To the love I never left behind...”*_

 

 

As the leap effect faded, I took a look around at my new temporary home. What I saw didn't do anything to improve a steadily deteriorating mood. I was behind the business end of a food service counter, in a small diner. The lighting was subdued, adding to the dreary feel. Country music played quietly in the background.

For the moment, the place was deserted. I continued wiping the counter with the dirty rag I found in my hand, wondering, as usual, about the leap I was in. Just once, I wished I could be granted time to relax without having to scramble to learn my role. Times for _me_ , Sam Beckett, were few and far between. It was something I'd never admit to Al--he'd only worry--but every now and then I'd repeat my name silently, trying to keep from losing myself among all those I replaced.

"Thank God that bus load's gone."

I glanced in the direction of the voice. A man stood behind me, in the kitchen. Looking to be in his fifties, he was short and balding, with a round, friendly face. He wore a baseball cap with the name Bill on it.

 _Bus load?_ "Uh, me too, Bill, " I agreed wholeheartedly.

So I worked for a road stop dive, catering to a bus route. At least I hadn't leaped in during the chaos--which was surprising, Whoever's running this show seems to get a kick out of doing things like that to me.

Then, a thought struck me. "When's the next one due?"

"Ain't none before three a.m. Don't worry Josey, you've seen the last of 'em your shift."

I looked at the clock on the wall. It read eleven. "Amen," I breathed, hoping I'd be gone by the following shift.

"Seems like they're never gonna end, don't it?"

"Uh, yeah. It does sometimes seem like it's never gonna end," I agreed quietly.

"You'll get used to it. How do you like the job, so far?"

So Josey and I had something in common--we were both new at this job. "Well...it's hectic," I told him. _More than you know._

"Yeah, in between the dead spells." Bill glanced around. "Well, you'd better get to them tables. I'll be in the back cleaning the grill."

"Okay, Bill." As he left, I began wiping the tables, disposing of the garbage left by the customers. Such little effort required for them to throw away their trash, yet it seemed beyond most of their capabilities. _My god, I'm already starting to think like a food service worker!_

"Beautiful country up here," a voice sounded out of nowhere.

Startled, as usual, I dropped a ketchup bottle. It broke and I bent down to clean up the mess. "Thanks, Al," I commented.

"You're welcome," he replied mildly. "You should see it during the day."

"Huh?" I said, distracted.

"Well, maybe you will. Anyway,"

I suddenly stopped what I was doing and stared at him. "How come you didn't come through the imaging chamber door?"

"Of course I did. How else do you think I got here? Greyhound?"

"You know what I mean," I hissed, keeping my voice down so Bill wouldn't hear me talking to myself. "I hate it when you spy on me."

"What's there to spy on, you cleaning tables? Hardly worth the trouble."

"Why am I here, Al?"

He heaved a put-upon sigh. "It's always the same thing, no sooner than I show up. 'What am I here to do, Al?'”, he mimicked. "No, hi Al, how are you doing, how's it going..."

"Why am I here, Al?"

"We don't know, exactly. All Ziggy's saying so far is you're here to have a major impact on someone's life."

"Who's? Bill's?" I looked toward the kitchen.

"Huh?" Al's eyes followed my gaze toward the back. "Oh. Well, let's see..." He busied himself with pushing buttons on the handlink and puffing on his cigar. "No, it doesn't look like it. He does okay, lives his quiet life out here, running the diner he owns. This is a road stop, Sam. It's on a major Greyhound route, running from New York to Seattle--and plenty of trucks pull in, too. A diversity of people pass through during their lives. It could be anyone--even you, uh, Josey Campbell. You just got out of prison."

"Prison? What'd I--I mean he--do?"

Al's eyebrows rose as he read the information. "Caught your girlfriend and her lover in bed and blew them both away with a shotgun. Crime of passion...something _you_ wouldn't know anything about."

I just glared at him until he continued. I was used to it and didn't comment. After all, he'd find something to remark on, no matter how I acted.

"You got out a month ago, now you're back in the town you grew up in."

"Maybe I'm here to prove he didn't do it."

"Uh, no. They caught him red-handed. Besides, he already did the time for it, and the crime was committed in Wyoming. You're in Red Rock, Montana."

"Then what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and wait?" I asked crossly.

Al called up the Imaging Chamber door. "Well, you could clean up this place -- it's a mess!"

I threw a dishrag through his disappearing form.

As I finished cleaning up, I wondered what it would be like to just work for a living. Collect a paycheck at the end of the week, go out on Friday and Saturday night and spend it...the life most people found boring sounded pretty good to me right then. I could almost envy Josey. He'd finished doing his time and was free again.

Would my sentence ever be up, or was my crime so bad I'd gotten life without parole? _Put the weight of the world on somebody else's shoulders._

I guess I was in one of those 'why me?' moods. They'd been happening more often than I cared to admit. Still, there was no point in dwelling on it -- there wasn't a hell of a lot I could do. Except enjoy the peace of the empty diner while I had it.

 

* * *

 

About a half hour later, I had my first customer. As he walked in the door, I glanced up from my boredom. He was in his twenties, with longish black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a denim shirt and a brown leather jacket that had seen better days. He had a beard and mustache. He could have been a bum -- but I had a feeling he wasn't. He had more the look of someone who's been on the road a long time.

I nodded a pleasant greeting. "Howdy stranger. What would you like?"

"Nothing you'd be serving, so I guess I'll take a coffee and a donut."

He paid for his food and I watched him sit down at one of the tables and start to fix his coffee, wondering if he was why I was there. At first I thought he might be a truck driver, until I realized I hadn't heard any semi's pull in.

"What brings you into this middle of nowhere?" I asked casually.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"I'm searching for the meaning of life."

My excited hologram chose that moment to appear. "Sam! Sam -- he's the reason you're here."

I glanced at the stranger, then back at Al.

"His name is Jeremy Brooks, Sam, and tomorrow morning his body is found at the bottom of a cliff."

I raised my eyebrows, hoping Al would get my question. He had a knack for reading my mind. In fact, sometimes, though I didn't like to admit that either, he knew me better than I did.

He fiddled with the handlink. "Uh, they never found out if it was suicide or an accident. But it looks like suicide, I mean, what was he doing out there alone that time of night?"

"Looking for the meaning of life," I said.

Al gave me a puzzled look. "Huh?"

"Yep," Jeremy answered. "Sounds crazy, right?"

"Oh, I don't know about that. But why here?" I asked.

"This is where the wind led me," Jeremy answered. At my questioning gaze, he continued. "I was on that last Greyhound bus that pulled in. I was traveling cross-country, looking for something--don't ask me what, 'cause I don't know. I figured I'd know it when I found it. Anyway, awhile back we passed a mountain. I guess to everyone else it looked like every other one around here. But there was something about it that drew me. I couldn't take my eyes off it. So I got off at the very next stop--here."

"To do what?" I asked, intrigued. Al, for once in his life, was silent.

"Hitch a ride back there, see if it has any answers for me."

"This is too easy," Al commented. "There's got to be a catch."

"There always is," I mumbled under my breath.

"You really think so?" Jeremy asked me.

I shrugged. "What the hell -- I could use some answers of my own. I'm getting off work soon, I could drive you out there."

"Great. It's around mile marker 34."

"Around?" I asked uncertainly.

"You can't miss it," he assured me.

 

* * *

 

"What are you running away from?" I asked Jeremy. We were on our way down the highway, in Josey's battered pick up truck.

"Not running away from anything. I'm -- running toward something."

"What?" I pressed, trying to learn more so I could determine if he'd taken his own life, or just had a stupid accident.

"Life. There's got to be more to life than this, and I need to find it."

"Sometimes things like that have to be taken on faith."

"Haven't you ever asked for more than that? Demanded a sign?"

I nodded guiltily. "I just don't know what you expect to find out there. God?"

"Just myself," Jeremy answered.

At his direction, I parked off to the side of the road, and we got out of the truck. I looked over the expanse of ground that -- eventually -- led to the mountain. It loomed dark and mysterious in the background, like it was...waiting. Jeremy was right, there was something compelling about it.

"That's quite a hike," I commented.

"They never make it easy for you," he said, already starting toward it.

I made a hasty search for a flashlight, then scrambled out after him.

"Look, Josey, I know you think I'm crazy. In fact, I don't know why you agreed to come out here with me."

"I told you," I hedged. "I'm looking for something myself." It wasn't really a lie. Even if right now the main thing I was searching for was a quieting of my discontent. Although, I wasn't likely to find it on some mountain in the middle of Montana.

"I'm descended from the Lenni-Lenape Indians," Jeremy told me as we walked. "Not enough to actually live their ways, just enough to see things... in my own unique way."

I relaxed a little. That explained his unusual attitudes about living and nature. How quickly I was ready to label him mentally unbalanced -- until I found out he was Native American. It must have been Al and Ziggy's influence, I'm usually very accepting of personal eccentricities. I'd certainly been called eccentric myself plenty of times.

"I've never heard of the Lenni-Lenape."

"Not too many people have, except those who grew up in the New Jersey, Delaware, or Pennsylvania areas. The town I'm from, Pequannock, is an old Indian name. They taught us about them in school. We used to--" he cut off abruptly, as if he'd gotten too close to something.

The silence was uncomfortable after that. "So, is this like a vision quest or something?" I asked.

"Vision...yeah, that's what I want. Sometimes, though, the price is high..."

Something about his words made me shiver. I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jacket and concentrated on not tripping over anything and breaking my neck. I'd given up on the flashlight. The batteries were nearly dead, and I had to keep smacking it to get it to cooperated. Luckily for us, the full moon provided a decent amount of light. Even if it did cast an eerie glow over the landscape, making it look like a tableau from some alien world.

And, what was I getting so spooked about?

If I thought it was tricky picking out way over the rocks and bushes... I stared up at the ominous mountain, staring back at me with indifference.

"We can't climb this in the dark," I tried to reason with Jeremy. "We'll break our necks!"

He turned to me and held out his hand. "I don't expect you to. I thank you for the lift, Josey. May life be kind to you." He shook my hand, then started to climb the mountain.

"Wait!" I called. "I mean -- can't you have your vision quest down here? You could get hurt."

"That's beyond us," he told me, without pausing.

"Oh no, it's not," I mumbled, reluctantly starting to follow. I decided it was most likely an accident that killed him, not surprisingly. Unfortunately, he was the reason I'd leaped in, and if I couldn't stop him, I had to go with him.

 

* * *

 

By some miracle, we actually reached the top without any broken bones. I decided it had to be divine intervention. Jeremy promptly sat down cross-legged on the ground. I was too busy getting my breath back and basking in the fact that I was still in one piece, to notice much else.

"Nice, huh?" he asked.

I looked up, and the breath caught in my throat. It wasn't just nice, it was magnificent. It was as if we were on top of the world, had indeed touched heaven. The sky, at least. Directly in front of us, the full moon held reign over its domain, dominating the scene with its commanding presence and looking close enough to reach out and touch. Everything was still; the quiet of the earth at peace, untouched by the harsh hand of man.

I breathed deeply of the clear, crisp air, feeling it go to my head like a drug. "This is fantastic," I finally broke the tranquility to whisper reverently.

For the next half hour or so, we just sat there. I remained silent, giving my companion privacy to ask for his answers. As I stared into a sky filled with thousands of glittering jewels, I found myself wishing on a falling star. To my surprise, in that instant my wish wasn't to go home. It was simply, for my own answers.

I heard the imaging chamber door, then Al was standing next to me. "So how--" the words faded into silence. "Wow..." he eventually said in a subdued voice. "This is something else."

Now, there were three of us sharing communion with nature.

"Did ya ever wonder about God's motives?" Jeremy finally spoke.

I chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you could say I have."

He got to his feet. "We're limited by our physical bodies. As long as we're imprisoned in them, our minds cannot ever be free."

"I don't think I like the sound of that, Sam," Al told me, still speaking softly.

"What about your answers?" I asked cautiously.

"Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place." Jeremy glanced down into the darkness. "Sometimes the answers aren't on this plane. Didn't you ever wonder about the other side?" He took a step closer to the edge.

"Uh--wha--what about all the things we can accomplish on this plane?" I asked hastily.

"We all have our own missions."

"This guy isn't wound too tight, is he?" Al commented.

Unfortunately, I had to agree with him.

"Life is a gift, Jeremy. It's not up to us to decide when to give it back." _Or what to do with it._

"But you don't understand--I've had my answer. I'm meant to stay here. Death isn't the end -- if you understood that, you wouldn't be staying those things."

"Keep him talking, Sam!" Al instructed nervously.

"Remember what you said about motives?" I began. "Well, God sent me here to stop you, what do you think of that?"

"What for?" Jeremy asked.

"Maybe we all have reasons for being here. You just gotta keep the faith."

"Are you telling me no one ever died in vain? Without accomplishing anything in their lives?"

"Maybe they never found out what their mission was. Didn't look hard enough -- or," I blinked as my own words sank in, "didn't recognize it when they found it."

"I asked for a sign -- I got it." Jeremy took yet another step closer to the darkness.

"Don't you see--" I pleaded with him. " _I'm_ your sign."

He looked at me dubiously, and I glanced at Al for help.

Al was punching buttons on the handlink frantically. "Uh, let's see...he was real close to his brother, who ran away from home at age fourteen, to live among the Indians in...bingo--Montana. Two years later the family got word that he'd been killed in some kind of accident--they think, the details were sketchy. There's a good chance it had to do with some kind of rite of passage. His name was..." He smacked the link threateningly. "Phillip--Running Deer, as he was later called."

"Is this about Phillip?" I asked carefully.

Jeremy's head whipped around in shock. "How--how did you know about him?"

"I know a lot about him," I said. "I told you, I've been sent here for you." I squelched down a touch of guilt over my tactics. It felt funny saying God had sent me... yet, if that wasn't the truth, we didn't have a better one.

Jeremy collapsed onto the ground again, and I felt some of the tension ease. "I was supposed to be watching him, but I snuck out of the house to hang out with my friends. When I got home...he was gone," he whispered in an anguished voice.

"I know you feel guilty about that," I told him. "But you don't have to die for it. Phillip wouldn't have wanted it like that."

"He told me when you die, your spirit goes into nature, like the great beasts. And we're all together. I just wanted to be together with him again..." Jeremy confessed in a voice choked with emotion.

I put my arm around his shaking shoulders. "One day you will be. But it's not your time yet, Jeremy. I'm here to tell you that." I glanced at Al over his head, looking for some inspiration. I was running out of arguments, and I didn't think Jeremy was convinced yet.

Al consulted Ziggy, looking for some piece of knowledge about the brothers that might help. "Tell him the--" he bent closer to the readout, staring at the link as if it had sprouted wings. "Tell him the boulder holds the message?"

"The boulder holds the message?" I repeated in confusion.

"What boulder?" Jeremy asked, glancing around. Before I knew what he was doing, he'd shrugged out of my grasp and crawled over to a large rock outcropping. In a moment, I heard his sharp gasp.

I scrambled over to him.

Jeremy was staring at the rock, transfixed. "Quick -- get the flashlight out," he ordered in a tense voice.

I did as told, turned it on and whacked it a couple of times -- at the very same time Al was smacking the handlink. We glanced at each other in exasperated amusement.

I finally got it working and aimed the beam on the spot Jeremy was pointing to. There, carved into the stone, was the words, 'Phillip Running Deer.' And the date. It was dated only a month earlier.

"What the hell's going on here, Al," I whispered.

"He--he's alive!" Jeremy exclaimed in shock.

"This is too weird," I stated to Al. "How did Ziggy--"

Al consulted the link again. "Oh," he chuckled, though too much like a man whistling in the dark for my comfort. "Somebody noticed the inscription when they found Jeremy's body, but they didn't connect it. That's why Ziggy knew about it." He shook his head. "Can you imagine? He was _that_ close on the night he killed himself -- but he never discovered it, never knew his brother wasn't really dead."

"I've got to find him..." Jeremy began excitedly, starting down the mountain again with enthusiasm.

"Be careful--" I started to warn.

Al waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Don't worry, he'll be okay. He and Josey go in search of Phillip. Whom they eventually do find. They stay with him on the Reservation, and through their spirituality, Josey even comes to terms with his own guilt over the murders he committed. Both Josey and Jeremy finally find their peace."

"That's great, Al," I said sincerely. "So why haven't I leaped?"

"Maybe you're on your own vision quest."

I looked at him as the link claimed his attention. He grinned. "Take your time. In his excitement, Jeremy takes off with your truck. He eventually realized something's wrong; he'll be back for you soon." He tisked. "That's what you get for leaving the keys in the ignition."

We were silent for awhile, each lost in his own private thoughts.

"This reminds me of home," I said with a touch of wistfulness.

"Nights at Stallion's Gate, when you used to get so frustrated when things weren't going the way they were supposed to," Al added, a pleased look on his face. He paused, waiting for me to comment -- waiting to see if I truly remembered.

I smiled. "And you'd pull me away from the insanity and drag me out into the middle of the desert to do some star gazing. My problems would start to look insignificant, next to the whole universe. It always put things into perspective."

"Maybe it can now, too," Al said quietly, and I stared at him in shock, knowing he knew my secret. He just gazed at me calmly, until I turned back to the sky.

We were silent again, only this time out thoughts were one.

I guess it was the mountain, but suddenly there was so much I wanted to say. Yet I knew I didn't have to -- like everything else, Al knew. Even when I was bitching at him to move mountains to get me what I needed, even though I rarely thought to ask how _he_ was doing...he knew how I felt.

He had to -- or else, he never would have put up with me all these years.

"I miss those days," Al admitted in a low voice. "I miss you, too. Funny, 'cause I see you almost every day. I guess it's that we don't get to do things together like we used to, just for fun. Everything is all business, the leap."

And it wasn't often we even got a chance to talk like that. Even if we had, Al rarely opened up these days. It was sad, we'd always had an equal friendship as far as being there of each other went -- but it was necessary. Like he said, everything was about the leap.

"You know the worst part of being a hologram?" he continued. I waited, grin on my face. "I can't give my best friend a kick in the butt when he needs it," he finished smugly. But he wore a rare affectionate expression.

Could I ask for a better friend? I didn't think one existed. I remembered his, maybe not-so-joking, comment in the diner. Maybe I could try to be a little more sensitive. I leaned on him without thought to his strength. Without care about his problems, or feelings... Surely I could spare him a little more honesty.

"Al," I began hesitantly. "I don't really hate it when you spy on me. It makes me feel...safe, secure. I know I'm not really all on my own out here."

"You'll never be on your own as long as I'm here, Sammy. I promise." He gestured to the huge white face in front of us. "In fact, all you have to do is look at the moon and think of me -- I'm not so far away."

It reminded me of what my father told me long ago, when he was teaching me about the stars. It had gotten me through a lot of lonely nights. I knew that's exactly why Al had said it.

Al continued quietly. "If I can't hug you, or shake you, or pull you out of danger...I can tell you how much you mean to me."

Al was getting mushy -- definitely a special occasion. Above that though, I knew it was the mountain. There was something magical here.

"What if there's a new moon," I teased, mostly because I was feeling choked up.

"Like your father told you -- pick a star," he answered.

"Megrez," I said automatically.

"Huh?"

"Remember when we simo-leaped?" I asked. He nodded. "I was...well, I was worried about you in the leap. Megrez was born in 1945, the year of the leap you were in. If there's no moon, Al -- look for Megrez."

"Worried about me?" he blustered, with exaggeration. "I had everything under control -- it was a piece of cake!"

"Piece of cake, huh? That's why you got clobbered on the head."

"Well, nobody's perfect," he pointed out. "I think I did pretty good, for my first leap."

"You, you did," I complimented appeasingly.

"I guess I... never thanked you," he said so low, I barely heard him.

But that was a subject which didn't need to be discussed. "I wished on a falling star before," I told him to change the subject.

'To be home soon?" Al asked, sadly.

"Actually, no," I said with a trace of the amazement I'd felt. "I still have a chance to get home someday. But Jeremy, and all the others, I _am_ their only chance." _And I can deal with it -- as long as I have a friend like you by my side..._ "I just wished to...be granted the serenity to accept the things I can't change, change the things I can..."

"And the wisdom to know the difference?" Al finished with a grin.

I grinned back, feeling freer than I had in a long time.

And leaped.

 

 

_Out of time_

_Too late, my mistake_

_But you gotta understand_

_I'm just another stranger_

_Looking for the promised land... *_

 

*Bellisarius Productions

Song is from the episode, "Disco Inferno"

 

 

The end

 

11/4/92

 

 

 


End file.
